Come To The Window

One of the first things you learn when you get a job in retail is that you should always make eye contact with the customer. It's important for them to see you because that way you can establish a connect with them. [Editor's Note: I don't believe that, it's just what I was told while working at multiple summer jobs where I was expected to treat this thing I couldn't wait to quit as if it were my career.] But because I have this edict burned into my brain, it was extremely unusual to be at a customer window the other day and discover that it had been heavily tinted, to the point it was almost blacked-out and made it impossible to see who I was talking to.

Now, I assume this was for safety measures, perhaps to stop potential thieves from seeing how much money was being passed around, but to the rest of us law-abiding citizens it just created a weird, human jack-in-the-box feeling to the entire transaction. It was kind of unsettling because I like to see people coming and this prevented that. Instead of being able to know when I should be ready, the woman behind the window would just appear randomly out of the side of this building, like some character in a terrible PBS children's show. I half-expected her to ask me what we learned from the day's adventure.

I also think this kind of tinting is a bad idea because I like to know who I'm dealing with and not being able to see what's going on makes me immediately suspicious. If you don't want me to see what you are doing, it makes me wonder if there is a reason behind that. I mean, what are you hiding back there? Honestly, they could dropped my food on the floor, put it back onto the tray and just hope I don't notice, which is now what I fully expect happened. If you're the kind of people that would do that, I would like to know that going in.

Adding to the general chaos was the fact that this was clearly the first week of summer help and things behind the scenes were still ironing themselves out (which might be the real reason for the tinting). At one point the door opened and one girl asked for our money. A minute later a second person gave us the first thing we order and disappeared back inside. Then a random guy popped out and offered us an ice cream cone which we had not ordered. Then a third girl opened the window and asked us to confirm what I had ordered which, as it turned out, had been sitting there for several minutes ready to go. Apparently, they couldn't see what was going on inside the place any better than I could.